


From Chest to Throat

by jibrailis



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: F/F, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-10
Updated: 2010-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibrailis/pseuds/jibrailis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Viola and Dahlia help each other out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Chest to Throat

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Are You Game?](http://areyougame.dreamwidth.org) challenge on Dreamwidth. The prompt was _Viola/Dahlia: partners in crime -- you're quite good with threats._

Most people had forgotten the name Dahlia Hawthorne. Like a good eighty percent of sensationalist news, once the years passed, public awareness decreased. However, it was not entirely the public's fault that few paid attention when the name resurfaced. The courts had tried to keep it out of the papers as much as possible.

But Viola Cadaverini knew. As the only granddaughter of Bruto Cadaverini, she heard the mutterings that went on behind poker games and long nights of generous wine. Bruto was friendly with his lawyers and lately they liked to chat about the bizarre hush hush trial of the State vs. Fawles where Fawles had poisoned himself and a girl thought dead had resurfaced to give testimony. Not that any of it was clear. The dead girl was Dahlia Hawthorne and the girl at the trial was Melissa Foster. But, the lawyers said with a bright gleam in their eyes -- for Bruto loved to be amused by stories of strange fate and fancy -- Foster was free and calling herself Dahlia, and she had a smile that could charm sugar from the cane.

Viola listened to their stories, smiling slowly and pouring the men more wine whenever her grandfather gestured. At one point Mr. Luciano, who had six children but still liked to touch Viola's backside, said, "Do you believe it, my dear? A girl that you'd kill yourself for?"

She chuckled. "I wouldn't kill myself for any girl, Mr. Luciano." _I'd be willing to kill others though. Would you be surprised if I said so out loud?_

"I didn't mean you! I meant a man!" He returned her chuckle and she thought about how stupid and red-cheeked he looked right then, with his wine glass mostly empty even though she'd refilled it two minutes ago.

_I can believe it about Dahlia Hawthorne_, she didn't say. _I went to school with her._  
  
At the ritzy private girls' school she recently graduated from, Viola had been a lackluster student, more interested in doodling grisly scenes in her notebooks than paying attention in etiquette class. She skipped gym whenever she could and she wore black even though the school uniforms were supposed to be green and white. The teachers scolded her and then ignored her. She was a Cadaverini. Dahlia Hawthorne, on the other hand, had been a model student, straight As in every subject. Sweet and helpful and maybe not so good at gym but definitely the darling of the theatre kids. In the sixth grade, she played Juliet. In the seventh grade, she was Maria. Viola snuck into one of the plays just to see what the fuss was about, and Dahlia's singing raised the hairs on her arms.

In the eighth grade, Dahlia had died. That smiling, gentle-natured darling. Of course a depraved man would choose to kidnap her over her sister Valerie. Of course the media frenzy over her death would mob the school for weeks at end, shoving a mic into fourteen-year-old Viola's face and demanding to know all the details about the poor victim. Of course.

And, Viola thought -- remembering those moments she didn't tell the media, of Dahlia scowling when things didn't go her way, of the time she threw the scissors at Missy Kimball -- of course none of it was true.

 

* * *

 

Viola didn't date much. She didn't meet a lot of boys when attending an all girls' school, and the boys she did meet were mostly through her grandfather. They were awed of her then, either that or they swaggered too hard trying to impress her. The men were smoother, which was why the first person she said yes to was twenty-seven to her nineteen. His name was Marco Nova, he was an up and coming businessman in her grandfather's retinue, and he had the charm of a 40s movie star. Getting ready for their first date, Viola's mother pulled out a shimmery purple dress and said, "Wouldn't this look wonderful on you?" and for the first time in her life Viola said, "Okay."

Marco loved the dress. On their first date he kept on touching it and then apologizing. He was a gentleman, he said, and he wasn't trying to make her uncomfortable. Then he asked her what she was interested in, what she wanted to do with her life.

"I want," said Viola with a small quirk of her lips, "to be a chemist."

"I have a friend who owns a lab. They work with pharmaceuticals. You want to see it?" Marco asked. And it was better than if he'd handed her a bouquet of perfect long-stemmed roses. Viola didn't care much about flowers but she did love petri dishes and thermal cyclers. She fell in love with Marco too, all the way up until the time he told her he was going on a business trip to Swizterland and she saw the Facebook photos of him cuddling a redhead on a ski lift.

She waited until he came home. She sat in his dark apartment with her spare key, and when he stepped through the door, a bit drunk from the airplane alcohol, she said, "Who was that woman?"

"What do you mean?" Marco slurred.

"The woman you went skiing with. The woman you were kissing. Who is she?"

"No one! No one at all!" Marco slapped his luggage to the floor. "Jesus Christ, Viola, you're so fucking suspicious. It was my cousin, okay!"

"You don't have any cousins in Switzerland," Viola said dangerously. "I checked."

"Fine then! I'm too tired to deal with this," Marco said. He fished his wallet out of his pocket and tossed it onto a side table. He missed and knocked over a vase. "Shit! You ever think that maybe I get tired of fucking someone who lies there like a piece of fish? You don't even have tits! If you weren't the favourite of the _capo di tutti capi_, I wouldn't have--"

Viola got up and left.

In the morning there was a message in her voice mail. Marco droned on telling her how sorry he was and how drunk he'd been last night, but he sounded more afraid of her grandfather than of her. She deleted the message and then sat cross-legged on her bedspread, contemplating what to do next. She didn't want to tell her grandfather. He'd be furious on her behalf but he had a way of embarrassing her with his attention. This was personal. She didn't want her grandfather punishing Marco for straying. She wanted it to be her. Maybe it was true that she didn't have tits but she had been raised in the bosom of the _Cosa Nostra_, and she knew how these things were done.

 

* * *

 

It was easy enough to find Dahlia even though she had rented her apartment under an assumed name. All Viola had to do was ply a few favours with the local police who were in her family's pocket. When she had Dahlia's address, she wrote a note on a cream-coloured piece of paper and slipped it under the door. Then she went out to lunch.

She was in the middle of her pancetta-wrapped halibut when Dahlia slid into the seat across from her, wearing a ribboned hat so wide that it flopped over her eyes. That was probably intentional. But even the shadow of the hat couldn't hide the blaze of Dahlia's bright red hair. Viola smiled to herself. "I'm glad you responded to little 'ol me," she said.

"You're the first classmate who's tried to contact me," Dahlia said. "I was so happy to be remembered!"

"Oh please. You can stop your Little Miss Sunshine act." A pause. "I know you killed Terry Fawles."

Dahlia blinked those limpid eyes at her.

"If he was stupid enough to be led by his libido like that, he deserved it," Viola said and chuckled morbidly. "I admire you for finding the right poison. It can be so tricky sometimes. There are so many, how shall we say..._complicated_ details of the concoction to consider."

Dahlia straightened her spine. She removed her hat and set it on the table next to the silverware. "I suppose there's no keeping secrets from a mafia princess."

"None at all," Viola agreed, still chuckling. She gave a little cough into her fist. "There's a...discreet matter that I was wondering if you would help me with. It involves a less than worthy man."

Dahlia sniffed. "Most men are less than worthy."

Viola acknowledged the point. 

"But what do you need me for? I'm sure you can snap your fingers and have all your grandfather's cronies jumping to help you," Dahlia said, and swiped a piece of hair that had tumbled to her shoulder. Viola tracked the movement with her eyes.

"You have red hair," she said. "I'm afraid my dear Marco has a certain...weakness for girls with red hair." Dahlia lifted her hand to her hair, and Viola added, "I'd pay you generously, of course. I know that apartment you keep can't be cheap."

"What would you know about money?" Dahlia scoffed. "You've never had to worry about it."

"Nor did you," said Viola. "Until you went missing. And whose choice was that, I wonder?"

"Hmph, you're a right conniving little bitch," Dahlia replied. "So go ahead. Tell me your plan."

 

* * *

 

On May 5, when Marco Nova left his office building for the evening, a girl with red hair bumped into him. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said, and when he looked up to tell her she should have been watching her goddamn feet, he saw that she was beautiful. The words withered on his tongue. He smiled, helped her up, and asked if she was hurt.

"My ankle, just a bit," she said, biting her lip anxiously.

"Let me call you a taxi," he said. And because he was a gentleman, he also said, "Let me escort you home."

Later, after she had waved him off, Dahlia walked the steps up to her apartment and let herself in. Viola was sitting at her kitchen island reading a book on forensics. "Well?" she asked as Dahlia peeled off her wrap and her sandals.

"He's very good-looking," Dahlia said. "I can see why you were attracted to him. Though did you notice how greasy his hands are?"

"He has a slight sweating problem," Viola said. Then she giggled because everything about love was funnier in hindsight and the imperious arch of Dahila's eyebrows made the whole situation even more absurd than it already was. Viola had never had a friend before, and while she was highly doubtful that she would ever call a sociopathic black widow like Dahlia a friend, it was rather nice to be chatting about these things with someone other than her mother. Dahlia went and poured them a drink and anyone in Viola's strict and conservative family, she was allowed to make it fruity.

"To gullibility," Dahlia said. 

"To pain," Viola said. "And to Marco never knowing what hit him. Maybe even...literally."

 

* * *

 

But Viola wasn't the only one frustrated with a man in her life. Dahlia had a...well, Viola wasn't quite sure if he was her boyfriend or not, but she saw him over at Dahlia's quite often, bringing flowers and chocolate and jewelry. He was a plain man with freckles, and Dahlia seemed utterly bored by him. "His name is Kit," she told Viola. "He's an investment banker, a prodigy of some sort. Graduated from high school and college early, so he never learned how to chat up the girls." Her voice dripped with disdain. "He's so insecure. He thinks the only thing he has to offer is his money. Well, he's right."

"Does he have any...particular talents?" Viola asked. 

Dahlia stared at her.

"With death...by which I mean, the little death."

"God no. As if I'd even let him."

Viola turned her head away and smiled. That particular streak of menace in Dahlia was _so_ satisfying but Dahlia could be strangely touchy sometimes about how entertaining Viola found her. She got the sense that if Dahlia couldn't woo someone, then she wanted to be feared, and it bothered her some that Viola didn't fear her. Well, it was too late for that. Despite his best efforts to shield her from the realities of the family business, she had seen her grandfather put a bullet into men's heads before. She could recognize ten different models of handguns by sound and the pleas of wives and children in seven languages. 

"I want Kit gone," Dahlia said. "He's so annoying."

"Then tell him that," Viola replied. "I don't think he'll fight back. He looks so...fragile. Like I could cut him open and peel apart his organs so that they would sing for me."

"Yes, but he has friends that I'm interested in, and he'll go blabbing to them about how awful and mean I am." Dahlia tapped her index finger to her chin. "How about this. You get your mafia buddies to scare Kit off a little. Tell him that I have a jealous protector or something, and that he's never to go near me again. Embarrass him. Make him piss his pants. That way he'll back off but won't want to talk about it with his Wall Street pals."

"I could do that, but what would you give me?" Viola asked. 

Dahlia's eyes flicked to a shelf above her TV where there was a small violet bottle. "Do you know what that is?" she said. "That's 50mL of Dasanga Leia."

_The most poisonous substance on earth,_ Viola thought. Made by master poisoner Yvette Largesse before her death and thought to be confiscated by Interpol after they searched her mansion. Viola's heart skipped a quick beat and she had to school her expression into mildness. 

"I'll give you 10mL if you run Kit off." Dahlia smiled beatifically. "Just a drop of that will kill an elephant, so that seems a fair deal, yes?"

"A fair deal, a fair death," Viola mused.

 

* * *

 

Kit the investment banker did indeed piss his pants. Viola lingered in the background as three muscle-bound thugs cornered him in his house and tied him to a chair. Leo Rossi, one of the best enforcers in her grandfather's employ, circled him devilishly and told him in no simple terms that he was to stay away from Miss Hawthorne. She was marked by the boss, do you hear?

Kit trembled, and cried, and vomited. Viola felt sorry for him. He seemed like a decent man, but life was as much about luck as it was about being good, and Kit had the bad luck of thinking he could romance the wrong woman. If he was as smart as his professors claimed him to be, he'd have known that Dahlia was_ cattiva._

"Thank you, Leo," she said when they were leaving Kit's house and climbing into the car waiting for them down the street.

"Anything for you, darling," he said, winking.

She had him drop her off at Dahlia's apartment. When she told Dahlia the news, Dahlia laughed joyfully and then went to siphon off 10mL of Dasanga Leia as promised. Viola watched her carefully, remembering how Dahlia had cheated Terry Fawles and Valerie Hawthorne out of a diamond. She had a derringer tucked into the folds of her skirt in case. But Dahlia handed over the 10mL without fuss. Viola made a mental note to test out the poison later, just to make sure that it was what it was claimed to be. There was bound to be someone or another that her relatives wanted dead. Perhaps an unruly cousin?

Dahlia flipped her hair over her shoulder, her signature move. "I wouldn't double cross you," she said irritably. "You're one of the few people I actually like."

"I'm...touched," Viola said.

"Even at school, I could tell you weren't like those other dumb bitches."

Viola chuckled into her sleeve. "What do you want now, Dahlia?"

"That man, Leo. He seems useful."

"He is."

"I want to meet him," Dahlia declared.

"He'll rip you into pieces. He'll hang up your skin to dry," Viola said. "He's wondrous with a knife to those who get on his bad side."

"Please," Dahlia said. "If he was that good, he'd be the boss, don't you think?"

Viola's eyes went from amused to cold. "No one can hold a candle to Grandfather. Don't even think about it."

 

* * *

 

But Dahlia was plotting something. In between her charades with Marco, pretending to be a nervous young girl who needed his big manly self to protect her, and her time spent with Viola, her mind was going into overdrive. She started asking Viola questions about the _Cosa Nostra_. They'd be innocently framed, no more telling than any of the million and one questions their classmates had pestered her with at school when they learned she was a Cadaverini. Viola answered most of them without qualm, but inside her head she was watching Dahlia back.

Did this girl really think she could make a power move against the Italian mafia?

_You better stick to diamond theft and sweet talk. It's where your talents lie_, Viola thought. _Leave the rest of it to the professionals._  
  
The endgame with Marco was June 16. Viola had mapped it carefully. He would be making an important presentation to Japanese investors on that day; his company could not afford to fail. On that day Dahlia would slip a special pill Viola had created into his coffee, timed five minutes before he went into the meeting. Ten minutes later, when standing in front of people who could make or break his future, he would begin to bleed out of his orifices.

"How much blood?" Dahlia asked curiously. 

"Oh, just a bit," Viola replied. "He won't die or anything..._too_ unfortunate. Nothing he won't recover from. But you see, Marco is freakishly afraid of the sight of his own blood. He'll panic. It'll be a sight worthy of spectacle." She reached into her purse and pulled out a clip-on camera. "Would you mind?"

"You _are_ paying," Dahlia said and let Viola lean in close to test out the clip. She was wearing perfume, something saccharine better suited to the girl who was fawning over Marco at every opportunity. But it was a warm summer day and underneath the mixture of tea leaves and gardenias Viola smelled sweat and musk. Some of Dahlia's hair was unfashionably plastered to the nape of her neck. Viola tried to get a better look and experienced a jolt of excitement when Dahlia's breath stuttered. Her hand was on Dahlia's chest, grasping the lapels of her shirt but near sliding towards her breast. None of this was a problem. After all, they _had_ attended a school full of rich, bored teenage girls.

But then she saw Dahlia's eyes canted thoughtfully, and she remembered how foolish it would be to trust her. Marco had been messy enough. She didn't need another person in her life, mixing up her thoughts. Viola pulled her hand to a more proper distance. "The camera looks fine," she said, and neither of them commented on the absence of her usual silky tones.

Dahlia Hawthorne. Melissa Foster. Anne-Marie Perkins. No matter what role she played, she always had the same charming voice and soft-spoken elegance.

And Viola thought about grabbing her and pinning her down. Licking a violent path up her throat. Breaking something already broken.

 

* * *

 

_Revenge is a basic principle of living_, her grandfather had told her once. _If you don't think so, just look at our justice system. That's revenge too, but coated up sweeter and more palatable. But we don't need sweet and palatable, do we, Viola?_  
  
When the day came for Marco's big meeting, Viola wondered if maybe it wouldn't be as satisfying as she had imagined, watching him make a fool of himself. She had built her expectations so high and what for? He was pathetic, in retrospect barely worth a tenth of the tears she'd shed over him. Lately the thrill and humour of tricking him had been outweighing the anger and the drive. This too was because of Dahlia.

There was another camera installed in Marco's office. When she booted up its feed, she saw both Marco and Dahlia preparing for the meeting; Marco fussing over his notes and demanding reassurances, Dahlia providing them. "Of course you'll do great, sweetheart," Dahlia told him, smoothing an invisible wrinkle on his suit, but when Marco looked the other way, she rolled her eyes. It was fascinating to watch her turn it on and off like this, and Viola realized that for the fifteen minutes leading up to the meeting, she'd spent more of it examining Dahlia's actions -- shuffling the notes, drugging the coffee -- than on Marco's.

This was why she wondered if Marco's meltdown wouldn't feel as good as she'd supposed.

She was wrong.

Once Marco started thrashing and yelling, to the astonishment of the foreign guests and Viola's unending glee, it felt just as good. Or...better.

 

* * *

 

"Your old friend Marco, he made a fool of himself. Embarrassed his company and by proxy, embarrassed me," her grandfather mentioned over family dinner that night. "I cannot rely on fools. You don't mind if I get rid of him, do you?"

"No, _Nonno_. I don't mind at all," Viola said.

 

* * *

 

"The money has been wired to your account," Viola said. "Every penny of it. I trust you won't find any reason to complain. If you do, we can discuss it like civilized people." She tilted her head inch by inch. "Or not."

"There's no discussion," Dahlia replied. Her apartment was a mess, boxes and items strewn everywhere. She threw a silk dress into a box and taped it up.

"You're...leaving," Viola said, perhaps unnecessarily. "Why?"

"Marco's finding a new job."

For the first time in a long while, Viola was at a loss for words. "You're...following Marco?"

"He's rich," Dahlia said. "Even after losing his job and being hounded by your family, he still has the money in the bank. And he does love me so." She smiled sharply. "A girl's got to eat, Viola. Not that I expect you to understand."

"But I just paid you," Viola replied.

"A trifle," Dahlia said. Then she stopped in the middle of tossing her CDs and looked at Viola, long and hard and more than a little mean. "It seems I have racked up some debt," she said, and it was probably the truest thing she had ever confessed to. Even at school she'd been a consummate actor. That was the difference between them. Dahlia lied. Viola saw no need to.

Viola looked away, at the wall, at her nails. They were painted black again, and she had no one who would make her feel guilty about it. "It's probably for the better," she finally said. "You were getting some uppity ideas about me. I wasn't looking forward to having to order Leo to put a bullet through your head." She paused for a long beat. "Or I could have done it myself. My aim with guns is as true as my aim with an eyedropper."

"You couldn't take me down even if I stood in front of you with a target painted on my chest," Dahlia scoffed.

Viola chuckled softly. "Don't make that challenge lightly. I might...accept."

Her steps out of the apartment and down the stairs were painfully methodical. When she was on the street, she let herself have one last look at the window, where she could see Dahlia's silhouette by golden lamplight, still packing furiously. _This is an image I should remember_, she thought, but then she shook her head. She had no doubt that she would see Dahlia again. Some people were too poisonous to avoid.

She smiled and looked down at her palm, where the shadows crossed it in velvety patterns and there were was a small violet bottle between her fingers. Moments ago it had been sitting on a shelf above a TV. But Viola's slowness of speech belied her quickness of hand.

Yes, Dahlia would be back. She absolutely hated to lose.

 

* * *

 

Three months later, when Viola opened the newspaper, she saw the article MAN DROWNS IN SWIMMING POOL.

The blurb: _Marco Nova, 28, while visiting his hometown, drowns in a tragic poolside accident. _

There was a photo of horrified onlookers surrounding the public pool, including a lovely young woman with red hair who lingered in the background and looked, just slightly -- if you squinted right, but Viola didn't need to -- like she was having a good time.


End file.
